Leading a Horse to Water
by Artemis Rae
Summary: Does the Viking pick the dragon or does the dragon pick the Viking? Five times Astrid and her Deadly Nadder disagree.


**Title:** Leading a Horse to Water  
><strong>Rating:<strong> K  
><strong>CharacterPairing:** Astrid-centric, established Hiccup/Astrid background.  
><strong>Summary:<strong> Does the Viking pick the dragon or does the dragon pick the Viking? Five times Astrid and her Deadly Nadder disagree.  
><strong>AN:** So I've been wanting to write HTTYD fic for a while, because I love Astrid and I spent the majority of the movie rooting for her to win dragon training. SHUT UP, I DID THAT MOVIE RIGHT. Future fic, implied if not right out stated spoilers for the ending, character studying of Astrid, and wild assumptions about the behavior and care of dragons. Also, I named Astrid's Nadder. Considering y'all appropriately warned.

* * *

><p>Summers in Berk generally don't get much warmer than a light sweater and thin leggings. It was stupid to go outside in anything more lightweight than leather boots without lining, because even with the slightly warmer weather it still rained all the time and losing a shoe to a sludgy mud puddle was no fun.<p>

Flying could be a challenge when your hands were freezing around the reins and the wind was drying your face bright red. When they got the time she and Hiccup liked to fly out of Berk and land for a picnic lunch at the cove where he'd initially found Toothless; it was private, far enough out of the way that no one could really find them but still close enough to home that they wouldn't get in trouble.

They didn't require much: a water skin, some hard bread and some cheese made up a good meal for the two of them while Toothless hunted in the pond. The only thing they really needed was each other, and the chance to sit hip to hip, shoulder to shoulder, Hiccup's long bangs brushing her forehead and her fingertips pressing bruises into his shoulders as she tried to pull him closer and closer.

Kissing was _fun_ and maybe the single only physical activity they could engage in during which Hiccup could actually keep up with her. It was really the favorite part of Astrid's day, settling in the cove, letting Toothless and Sefa run free, and then getting wrapped up in one another. Hiccup approached her with the same thrill that he approached any new idea or invention, like he wanted to figure everything out from every possible angle, and it was a little thrilling to be seen that way, to see that glimmer in Hiccup's eyes and know that it was because of _her_.

She would've really, really liked to focus just on Hiccup, but there was an awful noise in the background and she was having a hard time losing herself in the moment. Finally, she couldn't take it anymore and pulled away from Hiccup with an audible _pop_. "Will you _stop that_ Sefa?"

Her Nadder gave her a wounded look from where she was perched opposite in the cove: up in the lonely tree, wings spread wide, neck extended and feathers ruffled. She was chirping and flapping in annoyance at Toothless, wound around the base of the tree, trying to sleep.

Toothless cracked an eye open to look at Astrid, entirely nonplussed. Sefa shrieked, and Hiccup frowned. "What's the matter with her? I thought she liked Toothless."

"No today apparently." Astrid loved Sefa, had connected with her in ways she'd never thought possible with another living creature, but – "You know how temperamental she gets."

Do people pick dragons or do dragons pick people? No even Hiccup was really sure, though he and Fishlegs had been trying their damnedest to find out. Astrid didn't really care about all that – what she cared about was Sefa, and the trust reflected in her eyes, the satisfaction she got from caring for the dragon, and the companionship she earned in return.

She wasn't sure that she _chose_ the Nadder; she couldn't even say for sure that the Nadder chose her – that time had been so chaotic and frightening and, and _exciting_ and kind of like everything she'd only been training for _her entire life_ but she didn't tell Hiccup that because Hiccup was the one still hobbling on the results of that exciting time, but she thought Sefa understood, some part of her. If not Astrid's whispered words, then her emotions, her adrenaline, and, judging by the way her Nadder sometimes dove, the thrill.

All the same… "Sefa, stop being a pain." Astrid scolded. "Either take a nap or play nicely."

Sefa flapped her wings, irritated – Astrid could feel the breeze on her face, ruffling her hair – and took off into the air, leaving Hiccup staring up dumbly.

"Guess I'm hitching a ride back with you," Astrid muttered, tucking her hair back into her headband. "Stupid dragon." 

* * *

><p>There was something immensely satisfying about the noise an axe made as it sunk into a tree trunk. Astrid rose and went to retrieve her weapon, feeling a shot of pride go through her as it resisted and she was forced to put all of her weight into her arms, stretching at the shoulders and elbows as she slowly worked the axe loose.<p>

Fresh snow lay on the ground, and Astrid's footsteps were the only spots marring the white blanket. There was only a little sunlight starting to illuminate what she's come to think of as _her_ meadow, and Astrid knew she usually had until the sun was peeking over the horizon of the village before she needed to return home and help with the chores. Although, even if she were late, they'd know exactly where to look – she'd been going through these drills ever since she'd come of age and her father had handed her the family axe, a familiar sight that was usually strapped to his back, and Astrid had realized how _heavy_ it was. She'd started with the throwing axes the next morning.

Her father still carried the Hofferson family axe, but hers matched in heft, carry, and weight.

She stepped forward, planted her foot, and loosened her arms in a wide swing, letting the momentum spin her around, dropping to one knee and spying the tree that was serving as her target. Just as she was about to release, Sefa darted into her line of vision.

Every single muscle in her body tensed, and the weight of the axe dragged her forward so she landed elbow deep into the snow, her hands still on the handle of the axe and her rump up in the air. Sefa trilled, curious about Astrid's strange movements.

"Hey girl." Astrid said dryly, trying to shake her irritation at being interrupted. "What are you doing out this early?"

Sefa whined and dropped forward, butting heads with Astrid.

"What's the matter with you?" she asked, sitting back on her knees and stroking the dragon's nose. Sefa merely whined again and leaned up against Astrid once more before looking around meaningfully. Astrid frowned and followed her gaze. The woods were serene and quiet, with nothing but the occasional animal calling out to another interrupting the stillness.

"Oh." Astrid realized abruptly what Sefa wanted, and couldn't resist feeling a little bit disgruntled. Unless they were training together, Sefa knew better than to interrupt Astrid while she was working with the axe. Not even Hiccup dared. "You want to go hunting huh? We can go when I'm done."

She stood and turned her back to the dragon, who immediately rushed forward and butted Astrid behind the knees. Astrid stumbled and snarled "Stop it Sefa!"

The Nadder refused to stop, instead choosing to crowd Astrid, physically blocking her, making her trip at every turn. "Sefa!"

They had disagreed over this before. Astrid preferred to do her own training first thing in the morning, while the rest of Berk was still asleep and not likely to bother her. When the weather was like this, snowy but not unmanageable, Sefa liked to hunt first thing in the morning. And she _liked_ for Astrid to go with her.

"Go home," Astrid ordered, but Sefa ignored her. She held up her axe, "I'm going to keep working," she said warningly, but Sefa refused to relent, and after standing off for another couple of minutes Astrid caved with a little scream of frustration. She slammed the axe into the frozen ground and glared at her dragon.

"Let's go get your tack," she grumbled, turning towards home. Sefa followed along, preening with self-satisfaction. 

* * *

><p>"Sefa!" Astrid shouted, throwing open the window shutters outside their kitchen. "You coming in for dinner?"<p>

Sefa liked to roost on their roof, and at first Astrid's father had made noises about her ruining it, making it weaker before the winter snow piled on, but Astrid was never worried. Sefa knew how to do this, completely by instinct, and she and Hiccup had found sturdier nests on shakier ground. If she was wrong then she had to repair the roof when it collapsed.

She heard scrabbling as Sefa jumped down, peered through the window. Her head cockd to the left as she sniffed the air cautiously. Astrid tossed her a piece of fish, watching as her jaws snapped it out of the air.

"Just you and me tonight," she said cheerfully. "Something small before we go back out to finish training before nightfall."

A little part of her would rather be down at the hall, enjoying a real dinner with a warm fire with her friends and Hiccup. But the voice urging her is very small, very quiet, and Astrid has been raised by parents who've urged her to remember that there's trouble at every turn, dragons swooping in and houses burning down, and since there was no way to avoid it she might as well prepare to meet it head on. Now that they'd established the Great Peace with the dragons Astrid wasn't sure what trouble she was preparing for, but she was a Viking, and she knew it was out there.

_An occupational hazard,_ Hiccup would remark dryly, and with a pang of longing Astrid wondered when he'd become the voice of her subconscious.

She turned her back for only a minute to gather her meager meal, and in that time heard the splatter noise of something wet hitting the floor. Straightening in surprise, Astrid glanced over her shoulder at Sefa, who had her head cocked innocently, expectantly.

On the floor was the piece of fish Astrid had just tossed her. Their movements mirrored one another as they both looked down at the discarded food, then back up at each other.

Astrid narrowed her eyes. "What, are you not going to eat that today?"

_You're only talking to yourself, you'll end up tied to a mast if you keep it up_ Astrid's mother liked to tsk, but Astrid knew that Sefa understood her well enough. When she wanted to. Right now, however, she was looking at Astrid blankly, like she had no idea what Astrid could possibly be referring to. "You liked herring yesterday. I didn't fix it any differently."

Sefa chirred and bent down, sniffing at the discarded fish and blinking up at Astrid. Then with a determined squawk, she pulled herself out the window and back outside.

Astrid had to stop herself from throwing something after her. She saw Sefa's tail flick as she turned her back, and impulsively Astrid shouted after her, "I'm not making you anything else! You're going to have to hunt for yourself if you don't want herring!"

There was no response from the dragon; Astrid listened as she heard the sounds of Sefa settling back into her nest on the roof. This wasn't the first time she'd butted heads with Sefa about their diet – but normally Sefa was throwing a fit because Astrid wasn't sharing enough of her food, or Astrid was trying to wrestle away her portion of the day's catch from the dragon. Sometimes Sefa thought it was a game, and dashed away from Astrid, letting Astrid give chase with their catch towing behind her.

With a sigh, Astrid bit into her fish, and decided to at least be glad that Sefa hadn't decided to drag her through the smithy. "I'm serious!" she called once more, reassuring herself as much as warning the dragon. "I'm not getting you anything else! You're on your own, you stubborn dragon!"

Her only reply was several sharp thumps against the roof of the house; Sefa shooting spikes in annoyance. It was something of a relief to know that she was as irritated with Astrid as Astrid was with her. 

* * *

><p>Astrid hemmed and hawed for just a moment as she considered the tangle of leather in her hands. She glanced pathetically up at Hiccup, who seemed to read her mind:<p>

"You absolutely cannot fly without a harness," he said firmly, guessing her intention in an instant. "I promise I'll make you a new one as soon as I get the time. It would be sooner but you know I feel guilty unloading any extra work on Gobber."

"I know, I know," Astrid sighed, untangling the spare harness and working her way into it, fumbling with the straps and adjusting them to her frame. It was really no different than her previous harness, except that it wasn't _hers_ and it felt alien on her body.

Behind her, Sefa snuffled loudly, bleating with happiness as she rubbed her face against the grass. Her neck wriggled with joy, her tail thumping happily against the ground. She was already wearing her saddle, and paying no attention to Astrid and Hiccup as they talked. Hiccup was already mounted on Toothless, who was looking at Sefa smugly, as if he himself hadn't just been coaxed away unwillingly from the kitty grass.

She shrugged, and called Sefa to her. "Come on girl, let's get flying." Sefa lifted her head and crowed at her, reluctantly hopping over to her and kneeling down for Astrid to climb up. Just as Astrid had one foot in the saddle, however, Sefa let out a panicky screech and stood up suddenly, sending Astrid tumbling back to the ground.

"Sefa!" she protested. "What was that -?" Astrid cut herself off when she realized that Sefa was sniffing at her, as if she were hiding food under her clothing. "Stop it!" she insisted, trying to push her snout away, but Sefa persisted even as Astrid wriggled out from under her, pressing her snout up against Astrid's shoulder and huffing impatiently.

"What's her problem?" Hiccup called, clearly trying to bite back laughter as Sefa squawked unhappily and sat back on her rear. As much as it displeased Astrid, he found it hilarious when Sefa was being difficult - _because normally the two of you are unbeatable Astrid, honest!_ - and for being a Big Shot Dragon Expert Sefa's moods often confused him the same way Astrid's sometimes did.

Astrid glanced down at herself, and then back up at her saddled dragon. Nadders were temperamental, hers especially so, but normally she and Sefa could read each other's minds. "Are you…" she said slowly, looking between her frowning pet and the unfamiliar leather harness around her shoulders and waist. "Are you mad because I'm not wearing my normal harness?"

The harness in question had been made especially for her by Hiccup to match her saddle; he'd not only painstakingly imprinted the leather with a delicate design, he'd artfully painted the trim in red to accentuate Sefa's natural coloring. It had been beautiful, a work of art, and the envy of many of the village. To Astrid, it had been a better sign of any unspoken promise between her and Hiccup than any bride-price her parents may negotiate; Hiccup certainly wasn't putting that kind of effort into anyone else's tack. Sefa had noticeably preened the first time they'd placed it on her; she was as fond of it as Hiccup was.

However, she'd also been_ responsible_ for the destruction of the harness in question. "Oh you are not refusing to fly with this harness," Astrid said warningly, while Sefa raised her snout determinedly. "You're the one who ruined the nice one!" she shouted, stamping her foot.

Setting her jaw, she stomped over to her dragon and tried to climb into the saddle again. Sefa, utterly unwavering in her refusal to fly without _her_ harness, went limp and fell over. Astrid yelped as she tumbled over her, and behind her she heard Hiccup laughing out loud, without even trying to censor himself.

She whipped around and glared at him, and immediately he stopped laughing, the smile dropping off of his face even if it didn't quite reach his eyes. "Maybe," he said, voice cracking with laughter he was still holding in, "Maybe I can talk to Gobber about my workload tomorrow." 

* * *

><p>Astrid was in a poor mood as Sefa rose and then dove suddenly, creating a pit in her stomach that was normally fun but today only made her slightly nauseated. She wasn't trying to steer the dragon at all, letting Sefa fly where she pleased, and it was obvious that the dragon had picked up on her apathy as she turned and banked around a lighthouse over the sea. She was flying with the kind of intensity that Astrid usually only let loose in dragon training; these kinds of jaunts over the ocean were usually more leisurely, with Hiccup and Toothless flying alongside her.<p>

The thought of Hiccup only made her feel worse; the reason that he wasn't flying alongside her was because of the argument that they'd had that morning while walking to the stables; at this point she couldn't even pinpoint what had started it. She did remember that at first she'd thought Hiccup was joking when he wasn't backing down, and once she realized he wasn't the heat of competition had taken over her and then it had spawned ten or twelve other fights about stuff that wasn't even important to her, but it didn't matter because she needed to _win_.

It had ended with Hiccup storming off in one direction and her storming off in the opposite. They hadn't spoken a word since, and the weight of the fight on Astrid's shoulders felt heavier than any axe she might heave.

Sefa banked again, coming in low over the cliffs and flying into the forest, her feet skimming the treetops. She'd been confused when Astrid had shown up with her saddle alone, looking around and sniffing the air, but she'd consented to take off so Astrid wasn't especially concerned with the opinion of her dragon.

It wasn't until Sefa dove that Astrid realized where she was aiming; alarmed, she yanked back on the reins, growling in frustration when the dragon refused to be directed back into the air.

"Sefa! Up!" she ordered, but Sefa tossed her head, wings fluttering and legs stretching out for landing. With a squawk she hit the ground, and Astrid found herself smack dab in the middle of the cove, their normal destination when she was actually speaking to the young man sitting on a rock across from her, glowering under pulled down eyebrows. Instinctively, Astrid clenched her teeth and lifted her chin.

Toothless' ears perked up, his eyes lighting up at the sight of Sefa. With a happy croon her bounded over to them, and really, it shouldn't be so easy for Sefa to shrug Astrid off of her back but the next thing Astrid knew she was lying on the ground and Sefa was hopping after Toothless, her beak snapping out as if to catch his tail as he playfully twitched it in front of her.

She blinked as the sun shone in her eyes, wondering what other indignities she would have to suffer that day. Then, fury burning through her, she jumped to her feet and attempted to separate the dragons.

"Sefa stop that right now! We are leaving!" she insisted, wading into the fray created by a pair of wrestling dragons. Toothless whapped her with his tail, and, stumbling, she only just saw Sefa puff up in the way that meant she was about to shoot some spikes. "Don't you dare!"

She and Toothless lunged out of the way just in time; the bulk of Toothless' body hit her right in her midsection, and Astrid stumbled back, completely off balance until she slipped on the muddy shores and landed in the water.

"Sefa!" she shrieked, sitting up and tossing soggy bangs out of her face. The two dragons were happily tussling, barking and shrieking at each other, completely ignoring her.

Hiccup, however, was looking at her with a small smile on his face. "Don't say a word," she growled, but when Hiccup slid down from his perch and ambled over to her, holding out a hand, she looked away for only a minute before taking it and letting him help her up. He gave her a cautious smile, and she returned it, resigned to compromise and annoyed by how much she didn't actually mind.

"Stupid dragon," she muttered, wringing out her braid.


End file.
